


in my defense, spring

by mikkey_bones



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Agender Character, Aromantic Character, Asexual Character, Friends to Lovers, Grief/Mourning, Healing, M/M, Post-Movie(s), Recovery, Road Trips, Slice of Life, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-10
Updated: 2015-05-10
Packaged: 2018-03-29 21:31:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3911371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikkey_bones/pseuds/mikkey_bones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam doesn't have superpowers. He's just a guy who straps himself to a pair of metal wings. He's also not a therapist. Just a guy who took some classes and gets paid to be a good listener. People keep forgetting that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in my defense, spring

**Author's Note:**

> Written for tumblr user [got-tori](http://got-tori.tumblr.com), and a billion thanks to tumblr user [redcarline](http://redcarline.tumblr.com) for being my beta reader as I went along. Title comes from [this wonderful poem](http://www.thebakerypoetry.com/not-doing-something-wrong-isnt-the-same-as-doing-something-right/) by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, because I saw that line on a Sam/Steve photoset on tumblr and it stuck in my head as I was figuring out this fic.
> 
> A quick, mild warning in terms of content: this fic involves a lot of recovery themes, and in that sense, characters will often mention or discuss traumatic events that happened in their pasts. But all these events have been covered (and covered in a more graphic way) within the MCU itself. (Think: Natasha's past, Sam's past.) I try to always approach these events in a context of _recovery_.
> 
> Also I know it's been out for a while but just in case: this fic is absolutely full of AGE OF ULTRON SPOILERS.

Another day, another white-walled cubicle buried in a monolithic tan brick government office, fluorescent lights flickering wildly for ten seconds right after they're turned on because the room literally never gets used. There's an uncomfortable plastic chair and an uncomfortable plastic table and Sam thinks this all looks creepily like an interrogation room, like the ones you see in the cop dramas on TV.

He looks around surreptitiously but there's no one-way mirror. There is a camera, though, in the corner of the room. He wonders if it even works anymore.

“Here you are, sir,” his escort says. She's petite, dark-haired, walks in her navy blue pumps like she was born in them. “I'll be back with your boxes in a second.”

Sometimes Sam wishes he was coming in here as a journalist so he could write a tell-all book about U.S. secret operations from World War 2 on. They—well, Natasha Romanoff mainly, and Sam admires her for that—already took care of putting that all out in the open, though, and last time Sam checked there were two exposés already published, a third on its way, and about twenty-five lawsuits from various parties against the United States government and the remnants of SHIELD.

Maybe it's not really patriotic to think that's funny. But Sam doesn't put much stock in patriotism, at least not the kind he got in the army, the them vs. us bullshit. Yeah, right. He's long since learned that's the easy way out.

The woman walks back in with a large, dusty cardboard box in her hands. “Here's Carton 54A,” she says. “Ring when you're finished, and I'll bring another.” She points to an intercom mounted on the wall.

“Thanks,” Sam says. She leaves.

The past few months have taught him that each little archive he visits has a completely different feel. In the U.N. archives, in New York, he'd been stuck in a fairly small but fairly crowded room, sharing tables with a Columbia professor who was researching modern Wakandan diplomacy (at least as far as Sam could tell from sneaking glances when he'd gotten bored) and an eager young graduate student who was writing her dissertation on conflict between the United Nations and the World Security Council over potential Palestinian statehood (they'd chatted over coffee after he'd struck up a conversation in the elevator). When he'd followed some HYDRA leads to the CIA, he'd had go through three levels of security and relinquish his phone and his car keys before they would let him in to look at anything. He'd been alone in that cinder block basement, except for the staffer watching his every move. Now he's in a State Department building that's a ways off the beaten track, looking at boxes full of records from the Sokovian Embassy. It's kind of nice that he was allowed to keep his phone, and equally nice that the archivist—though Sam's pretty sure that's not her only job, since it seems like no one ever comes here—isn't breathing down his neck. It's not like many people are interested in this kind of shit, Sam imagines. It's sort of fun, though. Like detective work, only work that involves a lot of sitting and standing and squinting at typewritten pages and breathing in plenty of dust. Speaking of which...

He opens the box and sneezes, puts the lid down and sneezes again. When he's halfway done flipping through the contents of the box, he calls Steve.

“ _Sam. How's it going?_ _It's early for a phone call._ _Thought you'd still be at the State Department_.”

“I am,” Sam says and puts Steve on speaker, so he can put the phone down and continue looking through the folders. “Sitting with a bunch of papers, actually. Pretty sure this isn't allowed, but no one's here to tell me no, so...”

“ _Don't worry. If they throw you in jail I'll have Tony bail you out_.”

Sam can hear Steve's grin through the phone. “First you make me do all your homework, and then you won't even bail me out with your own money?”

“ _Can't afford it, sorry_.”

“Liar.”

Steve laughs and even through the phone, and echoing strangely in this little white cubicle, it's a warm and welcoming sound. Whenever Sam hears it he wants to make Steve laugh like that all the time and yeah, he knows exactly what that feeling means, and he's kind of coming to terms with it. “ _You're looking at stuff from the Sokovian embassy, right_?”

“Since there was a Sokovian embassy, yeah,” Sam says. The files start in 1992.

“ _Anything interesting yet_?”

“Well, apparently the first ambassador to Sokovia was recalled after two years and about fifty letters complaining about the food, the weather, and the people,” Sam says. “But nothing we're looking for specifically.” He's not surprised. They'd exhausted SHIELD's digitized files and now, unless the folder Sam is about to open contains a map to wherever Bucky Barnes is hiding, he's pretty sure they'd exhausted the paper trail as well.

“ _Right_ ,” Steve says. Sam imagines him probably giving that look where his jaw is set but his eyes are distant. It's his sad look. Sam calls it his “Bucky look” but only in the privacy of his own head. “ _The Sokovian stuff was a bit of a stretch. But after seeing von Strucker's place..._ ”

“I'll bet there's some records somewhere,” Sam replies, ever the optimist. “Just... in Sokovia. And probably destroyed. So, uh, never mind.”

His attempt at joking is rewarded with a chuckle. “ _Yeah. Next time I turn the Hulk lose in a creepy HYDRA castle I'll make sure I've saved all the important papers first. Which, uh, reminds me_.”

Steve's tone is awkward enough that Sam puts down the file he just picked up and inclines his head towards the phone, as though they're having a face-to-face conversation. “Yeah? What's up?”

“Yo _u planning to head back to New York in the next few days_?”

“Yeah, tomorrow, probably, if I don't find any surprises in here,” Sam replies, picking the file back up and moving it to his 'read' pile, which is slowly but surely getting bigger than his 'to read' pile.

“ _Mind taking Nat with you? She's in D.C. too. Been there for a while, actually, but she told me that she wanted to come back up to the facility_.”

Sam raises his eyebrows. He's been in D.C. for a while too, and he's almost disappointed that Natasha didn't drop him a line. But they're not actually friends, more like acquaintances—coworkers, really, at this point—and he always kind of forgets that. “Yeah, no problem, but I was thinking of flying.”

“ _Nat's got a car. You guys can carpool. Save the environment_.”

“Thanks, _Cap_ ,” Sam says sarcastically, but he's hardly opposed to the idea. “I get to pick the music, though.”

Steve laughs again. “ _You gotta_ _take_ _that_ _up with her_ _yourself_ _, buddy. Sorry_.” If any other guy ever called Sam “buddy”, he'd probably laugh at their face. And then walk away, because he doesn't get into fights anymore. With Steve, though, it's different. A lot of things are different. (Sam's beginning to realize that's the way a lot of people think about Steve and it almost makes him jealous, but he's not a jealous guy. He's hoping that's one of the things that _won't_ be different when it comes to Steve.) “ _So it's on for tomorrow_?”

“Yeah, sometime in the morning,” Sam replies. “We'll try and beat the traffic.” There's something in Steve's tone that tells him this is more than just a friendly suggestion, especially since 'give Nat a ride' doesn't really make sense when paired with 'Nat's got a car'. But Sam trusts Steve not to do any weird shit, figures he might as well see where this is headed. “Has she changed her number in the past couple of months? Can you send me that too?”

“ _Sure_ ,” Steve says and then, “ _Thanks, Sam. I really appreciate it_.”

Sam would probably fly into machine gun fire just to hear Steve tell him that. Hell, he _has_. Again, he knows what that means. Again, he's kind of coming to terms with it. “Anytime, man. No problem.”

There's a pause, the kind that happens in phone conversations when both people run out of things to say but neither wants to hang up just yet. Sam opens another folder. Steve clears his throat. “ _So, uh. Guess I should let you get back to work_.”

Sam laughs. “Trust me, I've been working. But I'll let you go for now. Don't want the lady to come back down here and yell at me.”

“ _Or throw you in jail_ ,” Steve reminds him.

“Or throw me in jail,” Sam agrees. “As much as I want to see you use Tony Stark's money to bail me out.”

Steve laughs again. “ _Call me when you're finished?_ ”

“'Course,” Sam replies. Steve's just asking for a debriefing, so he can know if Sam's found anything interesting. Or not, which is the more likely case right now. But the question still makes Sam feel... Yeah, he's got it bad.

“ _Talk to you soon, then_.”

Sam's kind of glad this isn't a face-to-face conversation because he's grinning like an idiot. “Talk to you soon.” And when he hangs up, not even the closed-in, white-walled, plastic-furnished dreariness of the room can stop him from continuing to smile as he gets back to work.

\- - -

Natasha doesn't just have a car. She's got a bright red Porsche Boxster, trim and speedy-looking, and Sam's jaw kind of drops when she pulls up in front of his apartment the next morning. It's so absurdly indiscreet that he has to laugh.

“I'm borrowing it,” Natasha says in response to his evident surprise as she steps out and pops the trunk. She's not smiling, but her gaze is amused.

Sam kind of wants to ask whether it's the legal kind of borrowing or the not-so-legal kind, but he actually really doesn't want to know. “Cool,” he says. “I mean, wow.” He puts his bags in the trunk very, very carefully. Natasha's suitcases are already there, shoved neatly into the back. There's plenty of room.

Natasha waits until he's gingerly shut the trunk, then tosses him the keys. Sam catches them out of reflex. “You can drive manual, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Sam says. His first car had a stick shift “You really want me to drive this?”

“I get to pick the music,” Natasha says, slipping into the passenger seat

“We'll do fifty-fifty,” Sam suggests, sitting down in the driver's seat and running his hands reverently over the steering wheel before he even starts the ignition.

“Seventy-five percent, twenty-five percent,” Natasha retorts and she's probably smirking because she knows she's won.

“Fine,” Sam says, and starts the car.

In spite of Sam's best intention, they get stuck in morning rush hour traffic on I-95, creeping forward feet at a time while listening to Natasha's iPod. Lots of eighties stuff. Sam is feeling a mix of nostalgia and secondhand embarrassment, not that he's not guilty of listening to the exact same shit when the mood strikes him.

“ _Psycho killer, qu'est-ce que c'est?_ ”

Sam taps his fingers against the steering wheel in time with the music. The Porsche feels like any other car when it's stuck in stop and go traffic. Worse, maybe, because the acceleration is so smooth and fast that Sam just wants to gun it every time he presses on the gas pedal.

“ _Run run run run run—”_

Natasha stops the music. Sam looks over at her. “What's up?”

She's fiddling with her iPod in one hand, looking out the window at the highway greenery. “Steve told me I should go to therapy.”

Oh, no. Sam can kind of see where this is going.

“I used to go to one with SHIELD. Dr. F. According to his files, turns out he was a HYDRA creep.” The revulsion in her voice is real. “I told Steve there wasn't a therapist in the world I would trust right now.”

Sam taps his fingers on the steering wheel. “And then,” he begins.

Natasha turns to look at him. Sam sees the movement from the corner of his eye. “And then he suggested you.”

It's flattering, that he's the first person Steve thinks of when he thinks 'therapist'. Flattering and a little off-putting, because being the mental health support person is well and good when it's your day job, but not when it becomes your entire life. “I'm not an actual therapist, you know,” Sam points out. “Just a group counselor. I don't usually do one-on-one stuff.”

“We don't have to do 'one-on-one' stuff,” Natasha points out. “Just talk a little. I guess. According to Steve.”

“Fine,” Sam says, and gives her a sidelong look. “But you know, usually I get paid for this kind of thing.”

For the first time in the entire drive, Natasha actually smiles at him. “I let you drive,” she points out. Sam knew there was a catch. “And I'll buy lunch. We can stop in New Jersey or something.”

“God, New _Jersey_ ,” Sam says, disgusted.

Natasha's grin just gets wider. “If you were a _real_ therapist, maybe I'd get you lunch in New York,” she says slyly, and Sam's surprised enough he has to laugh.

“Okay, fair. Fair point,” he says. “It's a deal, then.” He looks over at Natasha again. “So where do you want to start?”

She starts, as far as he can tell—though he never read her files, even when they made the rounds on the internet and provided the content for at least ten viral Buzzfeed listicles—at the beginning.

The traffic has eased up slightly and Sam is cautiously accelerating when Natasha gets to her graduation ceremony from the Red Room, and skips ahead. “When she got into my head at von Strucker's place—Wanda, I mean—she made me remember. I think the others had dreams. But I... it was like I was right back in the recital room, the training room, the... operating room. I tried to fail the final test. I'd forgotten that, before. I try to fail, and they see through it, and I graduate anyway. Get strapped to a gurney, knocked out, wake up with fifteen stitches and a part of me gone forever. It's supposed to make it easier for you to kill, you know. Don't have to worry about liabilities. Don't have to worry about even the slightest chance that you could, you know. It's easier to seduce people that way, they say. Harder to fall in love.”

Sam is watching the road, but he's listening. Sometimes people like to hear comments, encouragement, acknowledgment as they talk. He has the feeling Natasha's the opposite, though, that she'll clam up if he butts in. So he keeps quiet, but he's making a long mental list of things that he wants to say later.

“She brought back how it all felt,” Natasha says. “We were sore all the time, in the Room. I learned to ignore it, but it was always there. That came back. On my first mission I'm still not fully healed and I tear one of my stitches as I take out the target and when I come back they punish me for it even though the mission is a success.”

It's like this a lot, with veterans. Sam's technically not allowed to diagnose and he tries not to anyway, but the way Natasha's talking, he's thinking _trauma_ with a capital T. Understandable. He lets her continue.

By the time they've gotten up a ways into Delaware, Natasha has fallen silent, her eyes dark and pensive as she looks at the road.

Sam glances over at her. She doesn't meet his gaze but she does notice it, and comments, “I'm finished. Thanks for letting me... get it all out.”

“'Course,” Sam says. That's what he does—facilitate these kinds of talks. Listen while people verbalize what happened to them, translate their trauma into words, work to work it out. Natasha sounds like she's gone through this all before, like she's told the story hundreds of times. Sam wonders if it's always been like this, then, or if Wanda made it all worse.

Natasha scrubs her hands over her face, then leans back in her seat, and Sam can see the exact moment when her mask comes back up, when she draws her composure around herself like shield and smiles at him. “So,” she says. “Any comments? Therapist thoughts?”

What she said about 'graduation' has been needling at him in the worst way, and Sam knows exactly why. “You know,” he says, “my mom got a hysterectomy when she was thirty-three. A year after she had me. Prolapsed uterus, or something like that, I think. And it... didn't make her a murderer. Didn't make her less of a mom, even, since she raised me and my sisters fine.”

He takes his eyes off the highway—the road is flat and they're surrounded by farmland, anyway—and looks over at Natasha. Her lips are pressed in a thin line and she's staring fixedly at the road. When Sam turns his attention back to the road, she says, her voice icy, “So you're saying I should stop using that as an excuse and just face the fact that I'm a ruthless monster because that's who I am,” she says.

“What?” Sam asks, genuinely shocked. “No! God, no. What I'm trying to say is, it's messed up, what they did to you. The people who ran the Red Room—they're the ones who taught you how to kill. Who raised you to kill. Who brainwashed you into thinking that it was your fault. And the, the hysterectomy thing—it was _those_ people who did it to you and _those_ people who convinced you what _they_ did made you a monster. None of this is your fault, okay? You were just a kid who wanted love and they warped that into something... awful. Something that was awful for you.”

“Eyes on the road, Sam,” Natasha says, quick and hard, and Sam realizes he's drifting into the other lane.

“Shit! Sorry.” He puts both hands firmly on the steering wheel and shifts so he's facing forward again.

Natasha's silent for a while longer. They pass a junk shop, a lake, a cornfield. Finally, she says, “But that doesn't excuse me from killing people. And sometimes enjoying it.”

“I can't comment on that,” Sam says. “I don't know what you can or can't be excused from. I'm not God.” That's a line he uses in his groups a lot, when vets ask _was it my fault? Did I kill innocents? Did I kill my best friend?_ (Did he? Sam doesn't know. He's not God.) “What I can tell you, though, is that you're not a monster. Those people in the Red Room, those people that took kids and twisted them—they're the monsters.” He pauses, glances over at her, offers a smile. “Monsters don't stick it to fascists by putting all their contact details on the internet.”

Natasha's hesitation is obvious, then she glances over at him and offers a twist of her lips that's almost a grin. If nothing else, it's honest. “Monsters don't let you drive their Porsches, either, I bet,” she adds.

“Monsters don't listen to the Talking Heads and buy me lunch,” Sam agrees. “Sure we can't wait 'til we get to New York?”

“Jersey,” Natasha replies, and presses play on her iPod. “Final offer.”

Sam accepts, and eventually, just a little past Trenton, they find a mom-and-pop style diner advertising “the Best Burgers in New Jersey” and Sam says he wants to go there mostly so he can try the burgers and feel superior about Maryland (and New York) cuisine. Natasha agrees without complaint and they're soon seated at a scarred wooden table that looks like it's seen better days. Perfect.

“I don't talk about my love life,” Natasha says after the waitress brings their food.

“Me neither,” Sam replies. Not that, you know, 'pining over Captain America' can really be considered a love life. But he knows where she's going with this. “Seems like you kinda wanna talk about it, though. The, uh, the Bruce thing.”

She gives a one-shouldered shrug,  picks up a french fry and  dips it in ketchup. “Not really. I've just been thinking.  I like flirting, but I've never... I don't think I've ever had feelings for someone. Been, you know, in  _love_ with them. Before Bruce. And even then—I think it was just because my covers were blown. Because I kept seeing all these talk show hosts say terrible things about me, and it was all over the internet too, and I didn't  _believe_ them but at a certain point it's like, wow, this tweet about me being a heartless slut got two hundred retweets in an hour, maybe that should bother me.”

“Yeah,” Sam says. He's seen some not-so-nice stuff about him on the internet too, but he keeps a lower profile than Natasha has ever been able to. “Yeah, that's awful.”

Natasha eats the french fry, and then another, and then says, “Yeah. So I think maybe the reason I was so... I just threw myself at Bruce was to prove that I wasn't that frigid, emotionless person. That I  _could_ fall in love. And after everything happened at von Strucker's place it just got worse, because then I had to prove that I wasn't a monster,  too .” She shoves three fries in her mouth at once . “I don't even know if any of those feelings  even real . Maybe he could see that.”

Sam never though he'd be sitting in a diner across from an international super-spy assassin Avenger who's  discussing romance— or lack thereof— with her mouth full. The past year has been full of surprises, though. “In the moment, though, your feelings were real,” he points out.

Natasha gives him a look. “Yeah, _okay_ ,” she says sarcastically and Sam laughs because he probably kind of deserved that. “I mean, maybe I should just come to the terms with the fact that I can't love anyone. Maybe they took that away from me in the Red Room, too.”

Sam frowns because even though Natasha is basically the scariest person he knows, he's also been around her long enough to realize that she can and does care deeply for her friends. “Maybe it's just me, but I'm pretty sure you love your friends,” he points out.

Natasha frowns right back. “But that's different.”

Sam's actually not so sure. He's never been good at figuring out where 'friend love' turns into 'romantic love', though. He tends not to realize he's crossed that line until it's too late to go back, either. He raises his eyebrows at Natasha. “Does that make it _less_?”

She doesn't answer, just eats a few more fries, but Sam can tell she's thinking about it. When she speaks again, though, she changes the subject. “Steve and Clint and everyone are treating me like I'm made out of glass, but I'm... feeling okay. Angry, yeah, but... okay. I'm almost a little glad, actually,” she adds after a moment, when Sam's halfway into the first bite of his burger. “This way I don't have to deal with all the messy stuff. Feelings.”

Sam chews, swallows, nods. He doesn't know if that's exactly the healthiest way to look at things, but he's also _not a therapist_ , no matter what everyone else seems to think. Just a guy who gets paid to be a good listener. “Yeah,” he says. “Feelings can get pretty messy, huh?”

Natasha laughs, then pins him like a bug under her gaze, and Sam thinks _oh fuck_ because it's almost like she can see right through him and he forgets sometimes that all the people he hangs out with these days, aside from his family, basically have super powers. “Any messy feelings _you_ want to talk about?”

Sam knows fishing when he hears it, and doesn't bite. “Not really, no,” he says. “My life is pretty boring, trust me.”

She gives him a look that says she's both disappointed and disbelieving, but doesn't press. “Fair enough.” She picks up her fork and knife and begins meticulously dissecting her chicken, and Sam watches kind of in awe because he's never seen someone eat fried chicken with that kind of delicacy, and it's so unexpectedly impressive that he doesn't even think to make fun of it. “So, did I pass?” Natasha adds after a moment.

“Pass what? It wasn't a test.”

Is this the part where she clams back up and pretends this was all some kind of act, even though they both know better? But she doesn't go that far, just laughs. “Yeah, I know. Kind of felt like one, though. Did I do okay? You won't recommend they take me off the team.” It's not a question, and her voice is firm.

“I won't recommend they take you off the team,” Sam agrees, because if he made a list of 'people who can't handle their own issues well enough to be part of the Avengers' (and, given the shit that went down with Ultron, he kind of does), Natasha would be at the bottom of the list. “And I'll tell Steve we talked, and it's all good, and he can stop giving you that worried look he gets when he thinks people aren't looking.”

Natasha's got a forkful of chicken halfway to her mouth and has to put it down because she's laughing. “That's exactly it! That stupid frown.”

“Right?” Sam asks, and they're back on comfortable territory (though every time he talks about Steve with other people Sam feels a little like he's walking over mud that could turn into quicksand at any second). “I'm pretty sure he can't get wrinkles, which is good, because he looks like that _all_ the _time_.”

“Yeah,” Natasha agrees. “You know, if there's anyone who needs to ' _talk to someone_ ', it's probably him.” She raises her eyebrows at Sam. “Don't you think?”

No, he doesn't think so, but that's largely because he knows what she's implying and it's like the death blow to any possibility of romance. The therapy thing. You're not allowed to have those kinds of feelings in a patient-doctor relationship. “I'm not a therapist,” he says for the second time that day.

There must be something strange in his voice, a note of _I'm definitely not joking_ , because Natasha gives him an evaluating look before saying, “Well, we'll find someone for him,” and changing the subject to the possibility of team uniforms, and Sam is so stupidly grateful that he doesn't even complain when she finishes her food and starts stealing his fries.

\- - -

Driving to the new Avengers facility normally takes two hours once you get past New York City. They cut it down to an hour and a half because Sam can't resist testing the acceleration and Natasha assures him that she has the papers in case they do get pulled over. Which they don't, and Sam is almost a little surprised because, as a Black dude speeding in a shiny new Porsche Boxster with a white woman in the passenger seat, he's kind of filling every item in the State Patrol's 'please pull me over' checklist.

He's hardly going to complain about it though, and after they get through security and drive up the winding hillside to the facility, Steve and, weirdly, Vision are outside waiting for them.

Sam brings the car gradually to a stop, resisting the sophomoric urge to show off _Fast and Furious_ -worthy driving skills in front of Steve. He'd probably just crash the car anyway. He gets out, pops the trunk, hands the keys back over to Natasha, and turns to Steve with a grin. “Hey, man, long time no see.”

“Only a month. Miss me that much?” Steve asks and Sam knows he's teasing but yeah, he did. They do one of those one-armed, chest-bumping man hugs, complete with back-slapping, and Sam's probably imagining it when he thinks that maybe Steve lingers for a little bit longer than 'no homo' really allows. But then he's moving on to greet Nat and giving her an _actual_ hug, and yeah, Sam was probably just imagining it. He goes to grab the bags from the trunk.

“Allow me to assist you with that,” Vision says. (Technically he calls himself ' _the_ Vision', but that's more of a title than a name, and so they've all tacitly agreed to shorten it to 'Vision' because that sounds less weird.)

“Sure, if you want,” Sam says, and then, when it seems like Vision is intent on carrying all four bags up to the building at once, “Show-off.”

Vision ignores him as he walks away with the luggage, but Steve catches that and laughs. “So how was the drive?”

“Fine,” Sam says, glancing at the Porsche. “Pretty fun. Natasha's got _awful_ taste in music, though.”

“I heard that,” Natasha interjects, giving Sam a look. She shuts the trunk. “You probably don't want to talk like that when I'm the one who's going to cook dinner tonight.”

“Natasha has _amazing_ taste in music and I loved every second of that drive,” Sam amends quickly, earning a snort from her and a chuckle from Steve.

“That's more like it,” she says and gets in the car, probably to go park it. They've got an extensive underground garage somewhere on the grounds, but Sam doesn't actually know how to get into it from the outside.

“So,” Steve says when it's just the two of them.

“So,” Sam agrees, running his hands over his hair and taking a deep breath. It feels nice to be out of the city. His lungs are thanking him. “As much as I love sitting in windowless rooms and looking at old papers all day,” and he's only partially being sarcastic, “I don't think we're gonna get anything more out of it. Time for something new.”

Steve shoves his hands in his pocket and gets his 'Bucky look' again, which probably makes Sam feel worse than he should. “Yeah,” he agrees. “I just figured, if we could find out where he _was_ , maybe we could guess where he is now. It was probably a stretch.”

“Well, if it makes you feel better, I'm pretty sure I learned enough government secrets to weigh in on a couple conspiracy theories, so we could always write a tell-all book and use the profits from that to raise money for the Avengers,” Sam says, because he's got this thing where he tries stupidly hard to make Steve laugh whenever he starts looking sad. “Imagine it—red, white, and blue, picture of your face on the cover. Could be a series: _Captain America Tells All'_ First book, 'The Truth About the Moon Landing'.”

Steve frowns at him. “What did you learn about the moon landing?”

“Absolutely nothing, but I figured we'd start big,” Sam says and gives Steve his widest, goofiest grin, and Steve rewards him by laughing.

“So it _was_ real,” he says.

“Can't tell you,” Sam replies, and winks. “They wouldn't let me see those files.”

Steve laughs again and throws an arm around Sam's shoulders, leading him up to the house. Sometimes Sam imagines what his twelve-year-old self, raised on Captain America comics and movies and books, would think about his life now. In reality, kid-Sam would probably be horribly embarrassed by adult-Sam's Captain America-sized crush.

They're halfway up the walk and Steve still hasn't taken his arm from around Sam's shoulders, not that Sam is complaining about that at all. “So you and Nat got along fine?” he asks, and if he's trying to be subtle it's really not working.

“Yeah,” Sam says. “She told me you wanted her to talk with me.”

“And?” Steve prompts, giving him a clearly expectant look.

“And we talked,” Sam says and thinks about shrugging, but he doesn't want Steve to interpret that as a 'please get your arm off me' kind of shrug so he doesn't. “It was a good talk. She's doing fine, Steve. Handling things really well.”

Steve gives him a semi-skeptical look. “Yeah?”

“Seriously,” Sam insists. If Steve is going to have him play therapist with other Avengers he should probably trust Sam's judgment, too. And then, because he doesn't want to have the whole not-a-therapist talk, he adds, “We got lunch together too. You know she eats fried chicken with a fork and a knife? Who _does_ that?” and Steve lets him move on and the conversation gets easy again until they reach the entryway where Vision is waiting with the luggage.

“Thanks,” Sam tells the sort-of-robot, and lets Steve's arm slip away from his shoulders as he goes to grab his two bags.

“Can you put Nat's stuff outside her room, please?” Steve asks.

Vision picks up the remaining suitcases. “Gladly, Captain Rogers.” He heads off.

Sam goes in the opposite direction to his room, and Steve trails along behind him, though Sam doesn't really know why. Steve's room is over by Natasha's, on the other side of the building. On the other hand, Sam's room is by the kitchen. But Steve doesn't turn down that hallway, and as Sam puts his luggage down and fishes out his keys, Steve just kind of waits there. It makes Sam a little nervous and he fumbles a bit with the lock before he gets the door open, drags his bags inside, and says, “What's up?”

Steve leans against the door, arms crossed. “There's this, uh, bar in town. Well, I guess it's more of a pub. Shaugnessy's. Anyway, I was wondering if you wanted to head down there after dinner, maybe get a few drinks, catch up.”

“Gladly, _Captain Rogers_ ” Sam says, because he's been dying to use that one since he heard Vision say it. He unzips his bags and starts to unpack, laying out clothes and toiletries. “Nat's coming too?” He assumes so, since Steve and Natasha are friends just as much as he and Steve are. But there's no immediate response, and when Sam glances over at Steve he's frowning a little.

“I was thinking just us, but she can come, if you want,” Steve says slowly, and Sam backpedals about as fast as he can because woah, no, he's not about to accidentally sabotage what might, maybe, in his wildest dreams, be a date.

“No, no,” he says quickly, and then, because he also doesn't want to sound like he's _against_ the idea of Natasha coming, per se, he adds, “I mean, she _can_ , but, yeah, the two of us. Sounds great.” And wow. He thought he'd gotten over the whole blushing and stammering thing in high school. He's glad that at least it's not noticeable when he's blushing. Steve won't be able to tell.

“Great,” Steve says and doesn't even make fun of him for his reaction even though Sam is basically setting himself up for a lifetime of Steve's special brand of gentle mockery. “I'll let you get settled in, then. See you at dinner.”

“See you,” Sam says and nothing else because he's still trying to figure out what exactly that invitation means.

And even though he knows he's overthinking it, probably, he's still wondering when he heads down to dinner a few hours later. Contrary to his expectations, Natasha's meal isn't Russian home cooking (Sam supposes that was kind of stupid and stereotyping to think it would be). She's made chicken fried rice and a green salad with ginger dressing and it's actually really good, and even Vision and Wanda come down to join them at the table, though Vision, at least, doesn't need to eat.

“Where's Rhodes?” Sam asks as they all settle in.

“D.C., actually,” Steve says and laughs. “Could've given him a ride too, if he'd needed it. He's tying up a few loose ends, working on his discharge. Can't really have an Avenger who's part of the U.S. military. It kind of ruins any claim we have to international neutrality.”

Sam takes a bite of his fried rice, raises his eyebrows at Steve. “Says _Captain America_.”

But anyway it's kind of a sore subject and Sam is hyper aware of Wanda sitting and listening to everything, though she doesn't talk much as she eats, and he doesn't know how well she's adapting not only to the team and Pietro's death but also to being in the U.S., a country that it seems like she's resented for most of her life. He doesn't want to ask, though—can't open that Pandora's box of issues at the dinner table, and lets the conversation move along to the subject of team uniforms. It's a hot topic, apparently, and not just with Natasha, because Steve is unwilling to give up his star-spangled look and Wanda doesn't want to ditch the red jacket. And Natasha, unsurprisingly, wants nothing to do with any sort of uniform that isn't black and more or less anonymous.

Sam's ideal uniform... is something red, probably. Not for any political signification (Republican, Communist, or otherwise), but because it's his favorite color and he knows it makes him look good. It would also be the equivalent of spray-painting a big 'HIT ME' sign across his wings, though, so he doesn't bring it up. Also, if he went red at this point he'd feel like he was just copying the Vision.

After dinner they clean up, and Steve and Wanda take the dishes because Natasha cooked and Sam “just got here, and you're cooking tomorrow, so you get a pass for today.” He's left with Vision at the table.

“Sam Wilson,” Vision says, fixing him with those uncannily human eyes.

“That's me,” Sam says and taps his fingers against the table. He tries not to get nervous about talking with a strangely human robot or about whatever he's doing with Steve tonight.

“You were a pilot in the United States Air Force and one of the two test-pilots for the EXO-7 project. Wings, to give a human the ability to fly like an eagle.”

“Falcon,” Sam corrects, because, yeah, he's picked a superhero name, and he's gonna stick with it.

Vision inclines his head. “Falcon, then. How does it feel, when you are in the sky? Does it feel freeing?”

“You can fly,” Sam points out, because this conversation is heading into weird _I, Robot_ territory and he doesn't quite know what he feels about that. Vision is no Sonny. He's no Will Smith. “Don't you know for yourself?”

Vision considers that. “I don't have wings,” he says.

“Neither do I,” Sam points out. “I just strap on this really heavy backpack.” He knows that he's kind of avoiding the topic but at the same time, he really didn't come here to philosophize about what it means to be able to fly. He did enough of that with Riley, when they were lying in their bunks at night and just shooting the shit because neither of them could sleep. This conversation is skirting too close to weirdly familiar territory for comfort. “I'm not, you know, I don't have super powers,” he adds, because he feels like people kind of always forget that too. “I'm just a dude in a suit.” That's why he likes having Rhodes around, among other reasons. They're both just stupidly reckless guys in flying suits.

Vision looks skeptical and is probably trying to get at something deep and life-affirming but, honestly, Sam has pretty much come to terms with who he is, what he's doing, how things are going to be. And maybe Vision gets that, because after a moment, he says, “We should fly together sometime.”

Even though Sam is kind of weirded out by the effortless way Vision lifts off the ground, like he might as well be standing still, he says, “Okay, sure.” They have to train together anyway.

“Then I will speak with you later,” Vision says, his gaze moving up past Sam, looking at something behind him.

Sam turns around to see Steve walk through the doorway. “Hey, you ready to get going?” he asks, glancing between Sam and Vision with a mild sort of curiosity.

“Yeah,” Sam says and stands. He waves goodbye to Vision, who nods at him, and then follows after Steve. “Let me grab my jacket.”

Steve's waiting for him in the entryway when Sam comes back, jacket and all because upstate New York nights still get cold even in May. Sam was letting himself hope that they'd have to double up on Steve's motorcycle but Steve's brought around a sporty white Toyota Camry and Sam raises his eyebrows in slight disbelief. “What's up with all the fancy cars? Is it an Avengers perk?”

“What happened to 'I can just fly there'?” Steve retorts with amusement, as Sam follows him down the walk.

“What happened to buying American-made, _Cap_?” Sam asks.

“Touché. Not doing so great with the whole unthinking patriotism thing, am I?” Steve comments. The car makes a stupid beep when he unlocks it. Objectively stupid, not 'I resent my teammates for having fancy cars while I'm still driving around in a beat up old Mazda' stupid, because Sam's not that petty. Really. He gets into the passenger seat.

Steve lets him pick the music, which is great because thanks to Natasha, “Invisible Touch” has been stuck in his head for hours and he wants to get it out as fast as he can. This way, too, he gets to look through Steve's iPod, see what new music he's gotten since the last time. He wonders who uploaded the new Kendrick Lamar album—whether Steve got that for himself, or whether someone told him to check it out. Maybe he heard it NPR. There's also Mumford and Sons now, and Sam snorts. “Who's in charge of your music recommendations now?”

“ _Not_ Natasha, no offense,” Steve says and grins when Sam laughs. “I asked Bruce for some suggestions, before he, yeah. He recommended Debussy but I told him I didn't want to listen to stuff that was old when I was born. Rhodes and Hill have been really good at keeping me updated, actually. Pepper, too, but I forbade Tony from touching my technology when he tried to do a software upgrade and broke it.”

Sam frowns. “He couldn't fix it?”

“Well, he told me that Apple was shit and that he could give me Stark tech with two times the memory, and I told him I didn't need a _terabyte_ of music, thanks, and then Pepper intervened and I ended up with a new iPod, so...”

Sam laughs again. “Christ. You should've gotten whatever he was offering you. I'd have taken it.”

“Next time, I'll get one just for you, Sam,” Steve says dryly, but he's grinning too. “Actually, you could probably just ask Tony. He's pretty generous. Tell him it's an Avengers thing.”

“Will he buy me a Porsche, then, too?” Sam asks pointedly.

Steve laughs. “Take that up with the man himself, Sam. But I'll put in a good word for you.”

The drive from the facility into the nearby town takes twenty minutes, mostly because it seems like Steve wants to put the little Camry through its paces and speeds most of the way. Sam has never been to an Irish pub in upstate New York before, but from the moment he walks in, Shaugnessy's seems like it fits all the criteria. There's a sign on the wall that says “Est. 1921”, and Sam imagines the place hasn't changed much since good old Prohibition days. Neither has the clientele. Maybe it's just because it's Wednesday night, but...

Sam leans over to Steve when they sit at the bar. “I'm pretty sure I'm the youngest guy here by a decade at least,” he says in a low voice. Also the only Black guy but he's not really a stranger to that kind of situation anymore and he's not going to bring it up if nobody else does.

“And I'm pretty sure I'm the oldest,” Steve points out with a grin. “By a decade at least.”

“The youngest _looking_ ,” Sam grumbles, and Steve laughs and orders them both a pint.

It's actually, when he gets past the awkwardness of just _being_ there, a pretty interesting place. A slow night, yeah, but everyone is a regular and everyone also seems to be minding their own business, which suits Sam just fine.

After their drinks come Steve takes a sip and says, “I just wanted to take some time to, you know, thank you for doing all that work down in D.C. And New York. I know sitting on your ass isn't really your favorite thing, but...”

“It was actually kind of fun,” Sam admits honestly. “And there's less sitting than you'd think. More standing. I learned a lot.”

He takes a sip of his beer. Steve's been going through this craft beer phase—he doesn't worry about getting drunk, so why not, Sam supposes—and Sam isn't really a 'beer' guy (more like a Corona guy), so he's got no idea what they're drinking. Some seasonal IPA from a local brewery. It's not bad. A little hoppy, but kind of fruity, and that's about as far as Sam's beer-tasting knowledge can get him.

“Yeah?” Steve asks with interest. “So you liked it?”

“Better than being shot at,” Sam quips and then, more seriously, “It was really cool. Made me think about lots of stuff.” He shrugs. “Made me think, maybe I should've taken the G.I. money, gone to college, studied all this stuff that I'm reading about now.”

Steve's got his 'listening look' on, his blue eyes all wide and concerned and looking Sam right in the face, making him want to spill his guts. He kind of already is. “You could still do that, you know.”

“You're right, I guess.” Sam takes another drink of his beer. He actually never considered that as a real option. It's probably not. “But I bet all the avenging we're gonna do would get in the way of my coursework.”

Steve laughs. “I can imagine. Please don't leave.”

When Steve asks like that, Sam knows they'll have to drag him out kicking and screaming before he leaves this of his own volition. And the feeling is far from terrifying. He welcomes it. He's an idiot. “Not when you give me those puppy dog eyes, I won't,” he says out loud, skirting around all the stuff he isn't saying.

And Steve laughs again, and the conversation moves on.

When he's halfway through his second beer, Sam says, “I know that we're all arguing about Avengers uniforms and stuff and yeah, as long as you don't put me in a spandex one-piece with a V-neck or something, I'll be cool with it, but... we should be talking about mission statement first, shouldn't we?”

Steve gives him a blank look, which makes Sam worry that this is just the alcohol talking, but he soldiers on, because that's what he does. “A mission statement,” he repeats. “Why are we here, what are our goals, and how are we gonna accomplish them? The whole 'if we can't save the world, we'll avenge it' line is great, but what does that even _mean_ , man?”

Steve's confused expression has changed into one of consideration, and he's frowning at his nearly-empty glass of beer. “That's... a fair point,” he says. “We've always just come together to face outside threats before. The Chitauri, HYDRA, Ultron...”

“Right,” Sam says. “But now we've got a _facility_.” The Stark Tower really, really doesn't count. “We're an _institution_.”

“We should get drunk together more often,” Steve replies, even though at this point neither of them are drunk. Sam's only a little bit tipsy.

“We absolutely should,” Sam agrees.

When Steve's signaling the bartender for their third round, he says, “You know, I've been meaning to tell you that I think you're really brave.”

_Wait, what?_ Sam thinks, but he's two beers deep and just kind of runs with it. “You think? Because I'm pretty sure last time we took out a HYDRA base I spent the entire time screaming like a baby.”

Steve laughs but presses on. “I'm serious, Sam. If I didn't have, if I wasn't like... this,” Steve says, and gestures to himself, and Sam thinks, _what, if you weren't hot_? but knows he's talking about the super soldier serum thing. “If I didn't have these abilities, this body, I don't know if I'd be brave enough to go out there like you do.”

Sam scoffs because he can't help it. “Yeah, you would be,” he says. He knows the Captain America legend; he grew up with it. The serum doesn't change what's in your heart, just your body.

Steve inclines his head. “Okay, yeah, I would be. But I'd also be dead. And even though I'm kind of technically over ninety years old, I don't think I'm really ready for _that_.”

“Me neither,” Sam says, and raises his glass. “Cheers to that.”

They're almost through that third beer when Steve says, “Have you ever talked to Wanda? One-on-one, I mean,” and gives Sam that frown he gets, the one Sam was complaining about with Natasha just earlier this afternoon. Feels like ages ago. “I'm worried about her.”

Sam knows exactly where this is going. It'll play out like a script. “Yeah? Why?”

“She's a little quiet. You know. She just got here, English isn't her first language, her twin _died_ , and to save Clint, even. It's an adjustment.”

“Yep.” Steve's leading up to a request he'll make even if Sam says basically nothing, so Sam isn't going to give him any help getting there. He won't say no, though. He's too semi-drunk, too enamored of Steve, for that.

“So I was wondering if you had time, you know, or the opportunity, if you could just check on her. See if everything's okay.” And there it is. “You weren't there in Sokovia, so maybe she'll open up to you more than she will for me. And I'm pretty sure you're better at all this than I could ever be,” Steve adds and laughs, and there's that self-deprecating flattery to butter Sam up. Steve's probably not doing it on purpose. To him, this is a strategic decision—he's making the best of the resources he has, and Sam's training as a group counselor is one of them.

Sam takes a gulp of his beer and regrets it, because that's a lot to swallow. “You know I'm not a therapist, right?” he says.

“But you get results,” Steve replies. It's not a 'yes'. “People open up to you. They trust you.”

Sam pretends he's saying _I trust you_ , which he kind of is, and that makes things a little better. “Yeah, sure,” he says and finishes off his beer.

They head back after that because it's been a couple hours and they're both at a point in life where they get tired at around ten p.m. The whole therapy thing coming up again has sort of put a damper on Sam's mood, which is pretty great because otherwise, with that whole 'don't leave' thing, he probably would have tried planting one on Captain America in the car, like a bad date in the movies.

He finally gets to see where the entrance to the underground garage is, though, since Steve drives through it, and they get out of the car together, paired footsteps echoing off cement walls as they head back into the facility.

“Thanks for tonight,” Steve says when they're in the elevator, his hands in his pockets, his gaze on his feet. “It was fun. I really enjoyed it.”

“Yeah,” Sam replies, watching him and trying not to think too hard about the many things Steve could mean. “Same here. Thanks for taking me.”

“Anytime, I mean,” Steve says. “We should do this again.”

Then the elevator dings and the door opens and Steve walks out and Sam doesn't have a chance to catch whatever look was on his face because maybe, _maybe_ those baby blue eyes would give him the key to whatever is going on here.

They stand awkwardly in the hallway. “So, yeah,” Steve says.

“Definitely should do this again,” Sam says.

It's like their phone conversations, when they run out of things to say but neither of them wants to hang up. But unlike those times, right now they're face to face, and there's a whole lot of things you can do in these situations that don't involve talking, and Sam's doing his best not to think about them.

Steve steps forward— _holy shit_ —and hugs him. Not the 'manly' kind of hug, but the real thing, a full double arm wraparound and a little squeeze at the end. Maybe it's the beer, but Sam thinks he feels his knees go weak. He's barely brought up his own arms to reciprocate when Steve steps back, clears his throat, and says, “See you tomorrow,” before fleeing.

Sam kind of stays in the hallway for a bit, staring, torn between putting two and two together like any thinking person would do because it's so _obvious_ , and telling himself he's got to be misinterpreting this because there's no way that Captain America...

But then, this isn't about Captain America, is it? It's just about Steve. And with Steve, maybe there's a chance.

\- - -

Like the sucker he is, he finds the time to talk to Wanda two days later, when they both end up in the kitchen for lunch. Steve's gone into town for some reason or another and Natasha's nowhere to be found. Vision is doing a creepy levitating meditation thing in the yard. Sam is spreading crunchy peanut butter on a piece of bread when Wanda walks in.

She sees him, stops. Their eyes meet. “Hi,” Sam says.

“Good afternoon,” Wanda replies and, after a moment, walks to the refrigerator.

Sam cuts up a banana to put on top of the peanut butter, then adds some granola because if he's going to be a health nut, he might as well go all the way. He doesn't realize Wanda is watching him until she asks, “What is that?”

“What's what?”

She's pointing at the Skippy jar and Sam lifts it up. “This? Peanut butter. Made from peanuts.” He has no idea how to say anything in Sokovian, Russian, let alone 'peanuts'. “Uh, nuts. It's good, try some.”

He opens up the jar again, gets a wad of peanut butter on his knife (it's only slightly used and hasn't been in his mouth, which is his excuse), hands it to her. She takes it with only the slightest hesitation and sniffs at the peanut butter before eating it.

Sam has never met someone who's never tried peanut butter before, not even when he was in Afghanistan. He watches her face as her expression changes from confusion to mild disgust to interest and she attempts to chew.

“It's better on bread,” Sam says. “Or bananas, apples. Celery. You can bake it into cookies, too.” He puts his sandwich together, presses down to make sure it won't fall apart, then leans his hip on the table and watches her lick the rest of the peanut butter off the knife. “Like it?”

“It is... interesting,” Wanda says, but she seems a little less nervous around him now. Good. Great. Sam pours himself a glass of milk and goes to sit at the table.

Honestly, if anyone should be nervous at the moment, it's him. He's just a normal guy. He doesn't even have his flight suit right now. Meanwhile, Wanda's got telekinetic, telepathic powers that were strong enough to leave Natasha Romanoff, of all people, hurting even two months later. Sam doesn't want to know what would happen if she got into his mind, doesn't want to imagine what kind of shit he'd see. How messed up he'd be after that. The thought makes him watch Wanda out of the corner of his eye as he eats his sandwich.

She comes to sit at the kitchen table with him in the next few minutes, though, and Sam is kind of touched to see that she's made herself a simple peanut butter sandwich and poured a glass of milk, just like he did. “They do not have this in my country,” she explains as she takes a bite.

Sam chews, swallows. “That's too bad. You guys are missing out.”

“Yes,” Wanda agrees. “We are missing many things.”

_Like your twin_ , Sam thinks and also, _like political stability_ , because after the Ultron thing Sokovia has been on the news a lot and the majority of the reports aren't so positive. There's a possibility things will escalate into 1995-levels of violence again. 1995 was when the Maximoff twins lost their family. (Sam knows because after Steve asked him to talk to Wanda, he read her file.) “Do you wish you were back there?” he asks.

She frowns. “It would not feel like home.”

Sam gets it. Kind of like the Air Force for him, though he wasn't born into that. “How about here? Starting to feel like home?” he prompts.

Her frown gets deeper, a little angrier, and she turns it onto him. “Home is dead.”

Okay, Sam thinks. “Okay,” he says aloud. “Yeah, I... yeah. Sorry for asking.”

Wanda takes a big bite of her sandwich and ignores him.

If he wasn't hopelessly committed to doing whatever Steve asked him, basically, this is where Sam would call it quits. He's probably not going to get anything more out of her. But Steve thinks she needs help and that Sam's the one who can give it, and he's... absolutely hopeless when it comes to this crush.

“I used to be in the Air Force,” he says aloud, real casual, like he's just kind of talking for the sake of hearing himself talk. Like he doesn't care if Wanda listens or not. “Got picked for this secret project they were doing. The wings. That was military tech.” He basically stole it, last year, but no one's come out and arrested him for that yet, so hopefully they've forgotten about it. “Anyway, I was part of a whole squadron testing those things, but only two of us got past the prototype phase. Me and Riley Sanchez.”

She's still eating her sandwich but slower. Sam can tell she's listening. Tricks of the trade—you've got to give a little before you expect anything in return.

It feels weird that he always ends up telling Riley's story to other people not for his sake, or Riley's sake, but in order to get other people to open up. It's also weird how easy it is to get the whole story out, like he's just giving a monologue he's got down by memory. And Sam lays out the whole thing.

“And so I had to watch my best friend get shot right out of the air next to me,” he concludes. “One minute he was arms spread out, getting ready to dive, the next he was just falling. We kind of thought we were invincible. Like we had superpowers or something. But a bullet to the right place, that's all over, you're dead.”

Sam doesn't realize he might be getting too heavy until he says the d-word, and then he looks up quickly at Wanda. She's long since abandoned the pretense of eating her sandwich. It's lying abandoned on her plate. So is Sam's, to be fair. Her expression is unreadable, and that scares Sam a little bit.

“So yeah,” he concludes. “I'm not saying I know what you're going through, like everything, but I, uh, can kind of relate.” And then he shrugs and subtly shifts so he's prepared to get up and run away as fast as he can in case she actually gets angry.

She doesn't get angry. Thank God. “Yes,” she says. She looks down at her plate. Sam looks at her. “How many years?”

“What?”

“Since he died. How many?”

It's December 17, the anniversary of Riley's death, butting up right against the holiday season and far enough away from May that Sam has to think about it for a second. “Seven years, this December,” he says.

Seven years. Feels like forever. Feels like no time at all.

“It still hurts?”

So that's what she's getting at. Sam sighs and takes a drink of milk, wishes for a second that it was something stronger. “Yeah. No. It never stops. It gets a little less, but... there are good days, there are bad days. Eventually the good days start outnumbering the bad.”

She nods pensively.

“It's better to talk it out, though,” Sam adds, kind of an unsubtle hint. “It's no good if you keep everything bottled up.”

“I speak with the Vision,” Wanda says, which should be surprising but kind of doesn't surprise Sam at all. “That is helping me. But the Vision is not human. Sometimes they do not know what to say.”

“'They'?” Sam repeats, raising his eyebrows.

Wanda gives him a look that's almost but not quite rolling her eyes. “The Vision is not a man or a woman. They are a Vision. They say that though their body resembles that of a man, this is false.”

Sam frowns. He—he and everyone else on the team, he supposes—just kind of assumed... “So did you ask him, uh, them what they... preferred?”

“The Vision says they do not care what they are called,” Wanda says. “But I have seen inside their mind, and 'they' is what they call themselves.”

“Huh,” he says, and reminds himself to ask Vision about that later. “Okay. So you talk to hi—them. About everything?”

She nods. “Sometimes, now, there are even good days, and it does not hurt so much.”

She's young and she's getting better and Sam can't help but offer her a little grin. “Yeah. Always weird when that happens, isn't it?”

“Always weird,” Wanda agrees and then stands, taking her plate and her glass of milk back to, presumably, her room. Sam sits in the kitchen for a while, just thinking. But then he realizes his sandwich is getting kind of mushy and his milk is getting warm, and he finishes his lunch.

\- - -

Sam told Wanda that he had good days and bad days, but more and more lately he has good days and bad nights, where everything's fine until he lies down to try and get to sleep. Happened a lot while Steve was in the hospital, after everything went down at the Triskelion. Happened after their first few scuffles with HYDRA. And it happens that night.

Maybe it's because he told Riley's story for the first time in a long time, or maybe it's just that tonight's the night picked at random by that dark part of Sam's brain to prove that it still exists. He stares at the ceiling, slips into a vague little fantasy about _what if this is all a dream and when I fall asleep I'm gonna wake up and Riley will be shaking me and saying we're gonna be late if I stay on my ass any longer_ and that's almost enough to convince him to close his eyes but he knows it's not true and he knows also that if he does sleep now, he's going to have horrible nightmares, the kind that keep him awake even when he's just remembering them later. He groans, says “Fuck you” out loud to his brain and Riley and no one in particular, and gets up.

The light is on in the kitchen. Sam worries that maybe it's Vision rearranging the fridge (again) because he— _they_ don't really sleep. But it's not. Instead, it's Steve, leaning on the counter with the kitchen lights making his hair glow like spun gold, staring into a glass of water like it's going to tell him all the secrets in the world.

“You're up late,” Sam comments.

Steve looks up, startled like he hadn't heard Sam walk into the room. “I could say the same to you. Can't sleep?”

“Yep,” Sam agrees and goes to open the fridge. He's not really hungry though, and he closes it. “You?”

“More or less,” Steve says.

Sam decides that orange juice is probably the best bet. He goes to get a glass and opens the fridge again, and as he pours his juice he wonders what's keeping Steve awake. Bucky, probably. A month neck deep in government files and they still have no idea where he could be.

So it's more than a little surprising when Steve says, out of the blue, “Hey, Sam, how do you tell when you like someone?”

_When I actually try to give a serious answer to shit like that_ , Sam thinks, but he likes Steve, and so he actually tries to give a serious answer. Sort of. “You just _do_ ,” Sam says, which is probably the least helpful response. He attempts to elaborate while staring fixedly at his glass of juice so he won't actually have to look at Steve. “You, uh, I dunno, you want to be around them all the time. Talk to them, even if you're talking about stupid shit. Kiss them.” He's so glad it's not obvious he's blushing.

When Sam risks a glance up, Steve looks like he's seriously considering his words. “And sex?” he asks.

Jesus Christ. “Yeah,” Sam says. He should've just stayed in bed. “And sex.”

“Can I uh, talk to you?”

It's not really the question that sets off alarm bells in Sam's head but rather the way that it's phrased, all hesitant like _do me a favor_ and _can you talk to Wanda?_ and this is not, absolutely not, the person that Sam wants to become. Especially not for questions like this.

His instinct is to say yes in a heartbeat. He knows better. “Steve,” he says instead. “Let me get something out first.”

Steve raises his eyebrows, lifts himself up out of whatever awkward spiral he was descending into. “Yeah?”

“Look, man,” Sam says because it has to come out sooner or later. “I know we've gotta make do with what we have and we can't trust everybody with, like, sensitive stuff, but I can't keep being _that guy_. Okay?”

“What... guy?” Steve asks, and he's giving that worried frown again but this time the look is actually directed at Sam, not at someone else.

“The team _therapist_ ,” Sam says, realizes he sounds a little too agitated for a one a.m. conversation, and tones it down a little. “If you want someone to be the mental health professional of the Avengers, you gotta hire them for that. I can't be pulling double duty like this.”

Steve looks a little shocked at first, like he doesn't realize what he's been doing until just now, and then his expression becomes contrite. “I didn't—” he begins, but Sam holds up a finger to stop him.

“Hang on, hang on a second,” he says, because if he lets Steve talk too soon Sam's just going to fold under whatever he says. “Lemme just get this out. Steve,” he says and he looks Steve right in the face, “I'd take a bullet for you, but I'm _not_ gonna be your therapist.”

Steve opens his mouth to say something again, closes it, shakes his head and gives a rueful laugh. “Okay. Okay, yeah, that's fair. I've been kind of... yeah.”

“Yeah,” Sam agrees. “I mean, don't get me wrong. I love talking to people. I just don't, you know, I'm not really qualified to do the whole,” he waves a finger in the air, “therapy thing. And it's not, you know, why I joined the team.”

“Yeah,” Steve says, and then, “yeah,” and rubs the back of his neck like he's really embarrassed. And possibly blushing? Sam kind of wishes the subject wasn't so serious and he'd brought his phone to the kitchen too because this is a Steve Rogers face that deserves to be photographed and possibly instagrammed. Not that, you know, all of his faces don't deserve to be memorialized forever. “We've got money. We can hire someone for that. I'm sorry, Sam, I didn't realize.”

The way you know someone is really worth keeping around is in how they acknowledge that they fucked up. Sam knew Steve was worth it even before this, but... yeah. He's in way too deep and he doesn't even want to try to get out. “No worries, man,” he says. “I just wanted to get it all out, you know. Before you're lying on the counter spilling your guts and I'm sitting here taking notes, or something.” He grins.

Steve grins too. “Yeah, I think that'd be bad for my back.” Then he takes a drink of water and his expression gets serious again. “I still wanna talk to you, though. But I promise it's not a therapist talk. Just as, uh, friends.”

_What's that 'uh' for_? Sam thinks but sort of moves on because an 'uh, friends' relationship is better than a doctor-patient one. “Yeah,” he says. “Shoot.”

“Okay,” Steve says and then... doesn't. Just stares at his water glass for a while. Sam raises his eyebrows and is just about to open his mouth to remind Steve that he's still here, when Steve says, “Okay,” again and takes a breath. “So.”

“So,” Sam agrees.

Steve shifts, fidgets with his glass. If he keeps that up, it's going to spill, Sam thinks, but resists the way-too-parental urge to reach over and take it out of his hands. “So I have this, uh, person, and I kind of like hi— _them_ ,” he begins.

_Oh my god_ , Sam thinks. “Oh my god,” Sam says out loud.

Steve looks up and it's like a giant flinch. “What?”

“No, no, you're fine,” Sam says quickly because the vulnerable, apprehensive expression on Steve's face is killing him. “It's just, can we please skip the chick flick stuff? I promise I'm not gonna judge. Unless you're talking about Tony Stark.” He can't promise not to be hugely disappointed, though, but that's all part of life.

“Sam, please,” Steve says and sighs. “I know I'm being an idiot. I just can't get this out any other way, okay?”

“Yeah,” Sam says and then, “Sorry,” because that probably wasn't a cool way to treat his closest friend. He runs a hand over his hair. “Go ahead.”

“Right.” Steve takes a breath and begins again. “I like... somebody. And I'm pretty sure I like them in all the ways that you'd _think_ you'd like someone. Flowers, hand-holding. Really long, uh, really long phone calls. Going out and getting drinks. Um,” and unless Sam is imagining it, Steve's face is bright red.

Sam's got two theories about Steve's mystery person. One goes to his gut, gets him all knotted up in sweaty-palmed, adrenalin-rush anticipation—that's the logical theory, the conclusion any thinking person would have reached way before now. The other theory goes to his brain, and that one says there's absolutely _no way_ that Sam Wilson could even register as a blip on Captain America's romantic radar. They're kind of battling it out right now, and it's a real struggle to keep his expression neutral but interested as he hangs on to Steve's words like a drowning man with a life preserver.

“So yeah,” Steve continues when it becomes apparent that Sam isn't going to contribute anything to the conversation for the moment. “I like the, uh, the person. A lot. But I've never been into, uh, sex things. I'm not a virgin,” he adds hastily. “I know you and everyone else on the team saw that goddamn Buzzfeed article,” and Sam actually has to laugh because yeah, it's true. '10 Reasons Captain America is Totally a Virgin'. Comedy gold. The laugh comes out a little forced, though. “Not a virgin, but I'm not...” He waves a hand. “You get it.”

“I get it,” Sam confirms. He's kind of starting to see where this is going.

“So I talked to Natasha about it, sort of, and she said that I probably liked, uh, the _person_ anyway, and I should go with what I feel and just kind of roll with it. Which, you know.” Steve shrugs and gives a little grin. “Wasn't too helpful.”

Sam manages another laugh. “Yeah, I can see how that would... not resolve anything.”

“And then I looked on the internet,” Steve says, and now that he's not talking about this mystery 'person' whose identity Sam still refuses to guess (mostly because he's afraid of what will happen if he's wrong), he seems a little more sure of himself. “And I found a lot of bullshit but Google also kept telling me I was 'asexual'.” He gives Sam a strange look. “Have you heard of that before?”

“Um,” Sam says and feels like an asshole while he tries really hard to remember all the details he learned in the Gender and Sexual Minorities workshop at the VA.

“It's a whole _identity_ ,” Steve says and now he's gotten into his full rhapsodizing-about-how-cool-this-century-is-sometimes mode and while Sam's more than okay with that, he's also kind of lost because the change in mood is doing the opposite of making his nervousness go away. “All these people on the internet—and there are _so_ many!—are talking about the same kinds of things! There's all these websites and blogs, and lists of people that might have been asexual, and it's so _big_!”

“Yeah?” Sam asks weakly. He wishes, honest-to-god wishes that he could be right up there with Steve, matching his level of enthusiasm, but he's a tiny bit preoccupied with the way his heart is still hammering in his throat.

Steve kind of catches that, or at least he catches the fact that Sam isn't exactly willing to go on about the Wonders of the Internet right now, and his serious expression comes back. “Yeah,” he says. “But I don't know... I mean, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'll wake up different one day. Maybe I'm just kind of lying to myself because I'm... insecure, or something,” though the really skeptical look on his face says differently.

“Hey, I mean, people change,” Sam offers, and it's true. “You don't have to be the same thing all the time.”

“But you think it's like, a thing? That people can be?” Steve presses.

“Woah,” Sam says and holds up both his hands. “Since was _I_ judge and jury for your sexual orientation? If hundreds of thousands of people on the internet say it's a thing—God, I can't believe I'm saying this—but, if like a hundred thousand people think it's a thing, then it probably really is. Come on. You know yourself best.”

Steve considers that. “Fair,” he says. “Guess we just didn't have fancy words like 'asexual' back in my day,” and Sam can tell he's just fucking around now, and gives a snort of laughter.

“Man, if you're asexual, that's cool with me,” Sam says, and it really is, and he'd probably even be cool if Steve, like Natasha, didn't like anyone at all. Disappointed, but that kind of shit isn't going to make or break the friendship. “But who's the lucky _someone_?” He kind of can't believe that phrase actually came out of his mouth, both because it's cheesy even for a rom-com and because he managed to get it out past the knot of anxiety that's starting to take up permanent residence in his throat.

“You're _really_ okay with it, Sam?” Steve presses. “Like, I mean, it's not... a problem?”

Theory 1, the rational theory, knocks out Theory 2, the 'Captain America with little old me? Inconceivable!' theory with a mean right hook to the jaw as Sam thinks, and thinks fast because he doesn't want Steve to have that vulnerable and kind of heartbreakingly hopeful look in his eyes for any longer than necessary.

Sex is sex. Yeah, he likes it. Yeah, he gets horny. No, for him at least it's not the be all, end all to a relationship, and it's not like every time Steve gets that shit-eating grin and his eyes sparkle just right, Sam's heart skips a beat simply because he wants to _fuck_ him. It's a whole lot more than that. Like how he likes talking to people as a friend but doesn't want to be a crutch for their mental health. Like how he had fun grubbing through old government papers but doesn't want to do that for the rest of his time on the team.

He takes a breath, looks at Steve. “It's cool. Like I said. It's not a deal breaker. I'm not gonna, I mean—” and then he stops because Steve hasn't _actually_ said who he's talking about.

“You've kind of guessed who that person is, haven't you?” Steve asks a little sheepishly.

“I might have,” Sam says. “But it would sure feel nice to hear you say it.” And God, that knot of anxiety in his stomach and that lump of panic in his throat have sort of dissolved into this really warm, really stupid feeling. The kind he gets when he hears Steve laugh on the phone, only squared. Multiplied by about a thousand.

Steve laughs, looks away, looks back. “I'm asexual,” he says. “And... I like you. Like, a lot.”

“Great,” Sam says and he's probably going to be smiling for days. “I'm not asexual, but we've established that I can deal, and I like you a lot too.”

“Great,” Steve repeats. And then they kind of stare at each other for a little bit and Sam imagines they've both got identical dumb grins on their faces and Sam really hopes nobody walks in right now but honestly? That probably wouldn't even bother him so much.

“So,” Steve says after a bit.

“So,” Sam repeats. They really need to stop copying each other like this or they're going to start sounding like a bad comedy act. “What now?”

Steve thinks about that. “Bedtime,” he says. “Because it's late and I'm honestly kind of exhausted after having that talk, no offense.”

When Sam thinks about it, he's pretty tired too, and for a while his heart was beating fast enough he'd felt like he'd just run a marathon, or something. Right now he just kind of wants to fall back into bed and smile like an idiot and bury his face in the pillow and, wow, he's an embarrassment. “None taken,” he says out loud. “I'm beat too.”

Steve smiles at him again and Sam smiles back and they do that thing where they just smile at each other for a while until Steve says, “We'll talk about this more tomorrow, yeah? Take it slow.”

“Sounds good to me,” Sam replies. It really does. He's never been good at rushing into things—well, things that involve love, anyway. He's pretty good at rushing into friendships, off burning buildings, through machine gun fire... other stuff. “I'll, uh, see you around then?”

“Yeah,” Steve says. Then he kind of shuffles forward and Sam kind of shuffles forward and he's not sure whether Steve is going for the mouth or the cheek and they do this kind of awkward cheekbone bump that actually hurts.

“Ow,” Sam says, and laughs.

Steve laughs too. “Sorry. I do like kissing. But apparently I'm a little out of practice.”

“We'll fix that,” Sam says. Tonight, they're going to go to bed. But tomorrow, the days after that, in this undefined future working with the team, finding Bucky, figuring things out... Yeah, they will.

 

**Author's Note:**

> _So in my defense, when he touched me the lights of my body came on._   
>  _In my defense, the windows were thrown open. In my defense, spring._


End file.
